It's mid-December -- time for any NFL team with serious ideas about reaching the Super Bowl to show it on the field.

It's a popular theory, and it usually applies.

What any team has done until Weeks 14-16 usually matters little if it takes its foot off the gas now -- or suddenly can't find the pedal.

It's time to floor it.

Disagree? Then consider, for instance, the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants at this time a year ago.

After threatening to run the table for most of the regular season, the Packers began to hiccup on offence down the stretch, thereby further exposing their porous defence. The full-blown belch came in Green Bay's first playoff game -- a shocking, thumping loss at home to the Giants.

By contrast, the Giants had muddled along last season until putting it all together in the final few games, winning three of their last four to squeak by Dallas and squeeze into the playoffs.

Four wins later, the Giants were Super Bowl champions.

This Sunday, as our good viewing fortune would have it, most of this year's serious Super Bowl contenders play against one another.

The 8-5 Giants are at the 11-2 Atlanta Falcons.

The 10-3 Denver Broncos are at the 9-4 Baltimore Ravens.

The 9-4 Indianapolis Colts are at the 11-2 Houston Texans.

The 9-4 Green Bay Packers are at the 8-5 Chicago Bears.

And Sunday night, the day's apropos capper: the 9-3-1 San Francisco 49ers are at the 10-3 New England Patriots.

Three of these five tilts pit division leaders against one another.

It's quite possible the five victors of these games -- collectively billed as "Statement Sunday" by NFL Network -- won't win a single playoff game between them.

We kind of doubt that, though. We expect one of the five victors to play its best ball over the next seven weeks and win Super Bowl XLVII.

Giants head coach Tom Coughlin this week maybe put it best:

"We've got three games to go before we decide what type of consistency we have, and how we respond to the kinds of situations that we put ourselves," he said. "It's an exciting time for us all."

Even if his New York teams didn't have to always play for their playoff lives in late December, you suspect Coughlin would never dream of allowing his team to take its foot off the pedal.

Remember 2007? His Giants had already clinched a playoff berth by the last week of the season when they played host to the 15-0 New England Patriots.

Coughlin appealed to the competitive instincts of his coaches and players and convinced them all to forego sitting out or mailing it in.

And his Giants not only forced the Patriots to battle to the end to escape with its signature victory, they sent a message -- both to the Pats and to themselves: that if they should meet again in the Super Bowl a month later, the Giants could play with these guys for 60 minutes.

That's exactly what happened, and the Giants pulled off one of the biggest upset victories in Super Bowl history.

But back to this year.

For each of the five Statement Sunday winners, unless it's a victory isolated from an otherwise faltering late-season trend, it will say more about that team's prospects in January than any number of strung-together wins in September, October or November.

Yes, we're thinking about you, Atlanta and Houston.

Regarding the Falcons, all that "Matt Ryan for MVP" momentum we heard through October sure has evaporated. The Falcons have played up or down to the level of their competition all season -- which legitimately raises suspicions about their lofty record.

And the Texans? If they lose at home to the fast-charging Colts, not only could they wind up surrendering the first-seed AFC playoff spot they've had safely tucked in their back pocket since late October, but they'd also be in peril to ward off the Colts in the AFC South.

In addition to the Statement Sunday games, two others pit wild-card seekers against one another: the 7-6 Pittsburgh Steelers at the 7-6 Dallas Cowboys, and the 7-6 Minnesota Vikings at the 6-6-1 St. Louis Rams. The winners live for another week; the losers are toast.

Hard to remember a single mid-December slate of games like this, isn't it?

And we never even got to the only matchup of the day that features two teams that haven't lost since before U.S. Thanksgiving.